Romans Lesson 5: Romans 1:24 – 32

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

            We observed in the last section that God has provided an abundance of evidence to make it clear to us as human beings that God exists. Moreover, God not only has provided the evidence through His creation, He has made the knowledge and its message plain to mankind so that we understand it.  Yet mankind refuses to acknowledge God; in fact, mankind suppresses, or “incarcerates” the truth about God through wickedness.  Instead of worshipping and honoring God, mankind instead honors and worships idols.  Man becomes foolish, disregarding the fact of God while bragging about how smart man has become without God.  Despite all of the evidence that leads to the existence of God, that God himself has provided and made clear to us, man creates other more comfortable gods.  Therefore, man has no excuse when faced with judgment on the last day.  No man will be able to stand before God and say, “I didn’t know,” or “If I had had just a little more information, I would have believed in you.”  God has made it clear to man that He is the Creator God, so man has no excuse for not believing. 

In this next section, Paul continues his analysis of the human condition in sin and willful disobedience of man towards God.  Up to this point, we have seen what man has done with God.  Man 1) suppresses the truth of God, 2) man refuses to honor and worship God as He deserves, and 3) man refuses to be thankful.  In this next section of Romans 1, Paul demonstrates what happens when man refuses to acknowledge God and instead creates for himself gods that satisfy man’s desire and longing for his creator. These gods are much more comfortable than a Creator God whose holiness stands in stark contrast to the sin of man, and who holds man accountable for his actions and beliefs.  Paul begins this section with the word, “Therefore.”  Paul wants to us to consider what he has stated about mankind in the preceding verses, because what is coming up next is a direct result of man’s activities in verses 18 – 23.  God is not arbitrary, but His punishments are just and purposeful. 

Therefore, God gave them up.  This phrase is repeated three times in the next 8 verses.  The NIV states that God gave them over to….  This I think better describes the action of God in relation to the sins of man.  Man refuses to acknowledge God, honor God or give thanks to God. Instead, man creates for himself gods that are more comfortable and gods that he is better able to control.  In other words, man generally tells God to “leave me alone.  I want to run my life, my way, without any interference from God.  When I want something, I will ask you.  Otherwise, leave me alone.”  This is the ultimate rejection of God, and man puts himself in God’s place.  God, then, essentially turns mankind over to their own desires and sins. 

What we as human beings often don’t realize is how God sustains and preserves the entire created order every second of every day.  He maintains the order of the universe so that things don’t degenerate into chaos.  Paul in Colossians 1 writing about our savior Jesus Christ states, ¹⁶For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.   God gives common grace to all of his creation so that the rain makes the crops grow, the plants produce oxygen, and we breathe in the oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide so that the plants may grow.  God orders and sustains creation, and mankind, so that we don’t all kill ourselves.  We take this for granted every day.  God created natural laws and systems in which the universe operates, but at the same time God maintains the order and ensures that we are able to live and function every day.  God is intimately involved in everything that happens or doesn’t happen in the entire universe. 

However, in Romans 1 we see God giving us just a taste of what we want by removing a portion of this order from the lives of humans.  God gives us up to our desires.  “You want to be left alone…OK!”  I think Paul here in these verses is describing a three stage downward spiral of mankind as God answers our desires and removes some of His order, in effect giving us what we want.  However, we must be careful to note that this is not a passive act in which God simply sits back and allows mankind to do what they want.  God is never a passive bystander to anything that happens in this entire universe.  God gave them up is an active verb.  God turns them over to their own desires and wishes.  These three stages of this downward spiral are lusts of their hearts (sinful desires in the NIV), dishonorable passions (shameful lusts in the NIV), and a debased mind (depraved mind in the NIV). 

Paul writes God gave them up.  This word is the same word used in the gospels when Jesus refers to Himself being turned over to the authorities before his crucifixion.  It implies a handing over to authorities, or turning over control to someone or something else.  Paul writes that God turns control and/or authority of those men who suppress the truth about God over to their own desires (strong wants, cravings, etc.).  Greg Herrick states this word “means that the process envisioned in 1:18-32 is not simply the natural course of events but an ongoing history directed by a sovereign God who makes decisions which affect people, societies, and cultures. The thought is truly a frightful one.”[1]  If people really want and desire their sinful lifestyles apart from God, God will give them what they want.  The terrible reality is that often, people really do get what they ask for. 

God turns people over to their own lusts for sexual perversion with each other, and this implies the ravenous desire for sexual promiscuity, fornication, and adultery.  However, don’t miss the fact that this sexual abandonment is related and linked to people’s idolatry in verse 25.  God gave them over to wild and reckless sexual desires and lusts because these people decided to exchange the truth of God, as written in the previous several verses, for idolatry and worship of created things, which is the ultimate lie.  Idolatry and wanton sexual perversion often go hand-in-hand, and we can see many instances in the Bible and in culture of this fact.  The sexual revolution is strongly linked with the disbelief in God, or the worship of false gods such as New Age, Hinduism, and others.  When man makes God in his own image, he is free to do what he wants, and usually that starts with wild sexual orgies, sleeping around with everybody and anybody, and freedom from any and all sexual restrictions. 

However, God does not arbitrarily pronounce His judgment on man’s sins.  Notice that in the previous verses, these people chose to dishonor God by suppressing the truth about Him, refusing to give Him thanks, and worshipping idols in their various forms rather than the Creator God.  Therefore, God makes it clear that when man chooses to dishonor God, God’s punishment will take the form of man dishonoring themselves through their actions and desires.  The end of verse 24 states that through their actions and desires, they dishonored their bodies among themselves.  Man gets what he desires, but dishonors his own body and that of others in the process.  Stage 1 is God turning people over to their own sexual and lustful desires to do what they want with each other in terms of adultery and fornication, and other shameful acts. 

Stage 2 goes even further.  Again, for the second time, God turns them over to their own dishonorable passions.  The acts in stage 1 are shameful and dishonor God and man, but at least they are “natural.”  Now, in verses 26 and 27, due to the effect of God granting people what they desire, man dives even deeper into the pit of dishonor and lust and begins doing those acts that are “unnatural.”  This word doesn’t just mean unnatural, but literally “against nature,” meaning that their actions actively strive against the natural order and design of things.  Note that again, as in verses 24-25, men and women exchanged a truth for a lie.  In the previous verses people could not stomach the truth of God so they exchanged it for the lie of idolatry in order to serve their own sinful desires and wants.  In the present two verses, they exchanged the natural order of things for those that are contrary to nature.  People can’t get enough sexual satisfaction and stimulation naturally, so they continue along the road to ruin through unnatural homosexual sex.  R.C. Sproul comments, “Paul does not set forth a detailed prohibition against certain homosexual acts, but rather he isolates homosexual behavior as the supreme example of the loss of human dignity. When the knowledge of God is suppressed, the nature of man suffers, and it manifests itself in gross, unnatural acts.”[2]

In stage 2, note again that these passions are “dishonorable.”  When man refuses to honor God, then the punishment is God giving them over to lusts that are dishonorable.  Paul writes that men were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. People become consumed with passion for sexual stimulation, and desire to gratify themselves in whatever way possible.  This passion becomes consuming; in other words, it literally takes over the body and mind so that a person craves it.  It is an addiction, and in fact can be compared to slavery.  The Bible cannot be any clearer that homosexuality is a sin which receives the wrath of God.  There have been numerous attempts to twist the words of Paul into making these verses say something that they quite clearly don’t say.  The act of homosexuality stems from the abandonment of the truth of God, results in a strong and intense desire to have sex with others of the same gender, and finally receives the penalty for such actions.  Sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, are probably some instances of such penalties.  Others include the loss of relationships with family, friends, and other loved ones, psychological and relational disorders common with homosexuals, and the general degradation and loss of value for people in general.  Sproul explains succinctly, “So one could say that the expansion, proliferation and explosion of homosexuality in a culture is in a certain sense a reflection of a demeaning of man in general and an expression of the wrath of God upon that society.”[3]

 But God is not done yet.  Because people refused to acknowledge God (literally retain the knowledge of God, or they did not approve to have God in their knowledge), God gave them over to a debased mind (the NIV says a depraved mind) to do what ought not to be done.  This word “knowledge is epignosis, and means more than just knowledge or facts about God.  In the New Testament it always means moral or religious knowledge.  The prefix epi on the word is an intensifier that denotes “above” or “full,” so this is not just some stuff one knows, but is “full knowledge of God.”  People have tested the knowledge of God and found it wanting, not for lack of evidence, but because people wanted to do one thing while God desired something else.  Therefore, people chose not to retain the full knowledge of God, and instead they fulfilled their God-given desire to worship with idols and substitutes for God.  Since we disapprove the knowledge of God, God gives us over to disapproved (depraved) thinking! 

Paul then writes that people are then filled with all sorts of evil and unrighteousness.  The list is long and terrible.  What are these evils?  The first section contains four words, but I want to stress two of them.  Unrighteousness and wickedness have been used by Paul previously to describe mankind’s rejection of God the suppression of His truth. 

• Covetousness – This is greed.  Unfortunately, this one sin is pervasive in our world and economy.  While healthy ambition and a desire to innovate are the positive drivers for much of the world’s economy, today they have been replaced by greed, pure and simple.  Wall Street rewards companies on their bottom line, no matter how they obtain a profit.  Corporate scandals have rocked the business world in the past years as people who run these companies have devised outlandish and often illegal schemes to simply make more money.  Ordinary people have amassed huge credit card debt mainly because most of us are never satisfied with what we have.  We are told the better life is around the corner if we just buy this or get that.  Greed is wanting more even though we don’t really need it.  Greed is also the desire for more at anyone’s expense.  Higher paying jobs await us if we can just get rid of our competition.  Greed is the one sin that has become a primary driver of much of the American Dream.
• Malice – A better way to say this is having ill-will towards someone.  People who are under God’s judgment not only dishonor and reject God, they do the same towards other people.  While their outward appearances may be hospitable and cordial, inside they strive to run over people to get what they want.  Many people do not honestly care about others except in situations where they use people to get what they want. 

The second section consists of 5 other sins.  These are:

• Envy – What is envy?  Envy is the disdain or hatred of another person because they have what you want.  Envy stems from greed, but is directed at the other person.  Think about what happens in your family, community, church, or workplace when one person is filled with envy.  It literally tears apart relationships, families, and groups. 
• Murder – Murder is the culmination of a disastrous relationship between human beings, and God considers it an assault to His own dignity.  Its prohibition is one of the Ten Commandments, which indicates how seriously God takes murder.  Think about the reasons for murder today.  People have been known to murder for a pair of basketball shoes, to protect their little secret affairs, to become members in a gang, or just out of the sheer enjoyment of it.  Man was created in the image of God, and is the image-bearer of God.  Life is so sacred, valuable, and dignified that to kill a life is to commit violence against God, whose image man bears.  Once man chooses to dishonor and ignore God, no human life is seen as valuable. 
• Strife – How many times have we seen people intentionally stir up trouble with a bad intent, or to be argumentative just to be so?  How many people consider it a positive quality to be a jerk?  People who are intentionally contentious, and do not make any attempts to live at peace with others, are purveyors of strife. 
• Deceit – Intentionally lying and misleading someone is the heart of this word.  The seriousness of this sin is reflected in its inclusion in the 10 Commandments.  People deceive others to ultimately hurt them, improve our status or standing by degrading or demeaning others, or to maintain power over someone else.  Unfortunately lying has become a pervasive fact of life, from the youngest of children to the various heads of state. 
• Maliciousness (Hostility) – Man’s commitment to others is based on his own commitment to God.  When man is hostile towards God, then he is by default hostile towards other men.  This includes violence towards others.  How many of us have heard of road rage?  Why have we seen a tremendous increase in civil lawsuits?  Workplace violence?  Hostile work environment?  Harassment?  Home Security Systems?  What about genocide in Darfur?  Civil unrest in various countries of the world?  Sectarian violence?  All of these are indications of the hostility of one man towards another. 

The last section contains 12 words:

• Gossips – In most of the lists of sins and vices in the New Testament, gossiping makes the list.  How many times do we talk about people behind their back with the intent of telling someone what we think we know or have heard about someone else?  Sometimes we spread rumors about people under the guise of a prayer chain, but all we are really doing is gossiping about them.  This word literally means “whisperer.” 
• Slanderers – This is someone who defames another, or speaks badly about other people.  This is a backbiter.  We are all guilty of backbiting our boss, or that person who thinks they know everything, and is the one person whom everyone likes to talk about.  When you say something bad about someone behind their back, you are slandering them. 
• Haters of God – Not only do people not acknowledge God, they eventually come to detest God.  They are enemies of God. 
• Insolent – This word may be rendered as “they insult one another.”  This person mistreats others for the pleasure that the affliction brings.[4]  This is the person who insults, hurts, or otherwise injures others simply for the fun of it, because other people’s pain and hurting brings this person pleasure. 
• Haughty (arrogant) – This is the person who shows himself above others, and brags of what they have to those that have not.[5] This is a person who is obviously very intelligent, wealthy, or otherwise gifted, and brags about their intelligence, wealth, or giftedness to those that are obviously not so.  These people are hard to be around because they are always right, and they are always telling everyone how much better they are than everyone else.  Our hiring system for jobs often makes people exaggerate and brag on their resumes in order to get an interview. 
• Boastful – This word is similar to the arrogant, but the person brags about what they don’t have.  This person claims to have exceptional intellect, wealth, or gifts, but in reality doesn’t possess any of them, or may possess them to a much lesser degree than the person is saying.  This is an imposter who claims to be something they are not.  Again, many people do this on resumes in order to get an interview.  Kids do this all of the time in order to be with the “in” crowd. 
• Inventers of Evil – People are not satisfied with doing the evil that already exists, but they have to figure out new ways to dishonor God and dishonor others.  Notice how many people figure out how to download illegal music and movies, even with all of the controls and copy protection on CDs and DVD’s.  Some of the corporate scandals, such as Enron and Worldcom, have revealed very creative and elaborate ways to hide profit, create false growth, and deceive investors.  People continue to dream up ways to rebel against God’s laws. 
• Disobedient to parents – As with a few of these other sins, this one is also found in the Ten Commandments.  Just a brief look at the nightly news or the newspapers will illustrate the disrespect kids have for their parents.  Some of the fault lies with the child, and some with the parents.  Parents should earn the respect of their children, and kids should respect their parents simply because they are parents.  This applies to a child’s own parents, as well as other parents in the community, church, and family.  This is the only one of the Ten Commandments with a promise.  We should all think about why that is. 
• Foolish – This word literally means to lack understanding, but also implies a lack of moral quality. In the Bible, foolishness is always contrasted with wisdom.  Foolishness is not stupidity or ignorance, but usually a lack of understanding of God and inability to make moral decisions.  Foolishness is summed up by Psalm 14:1, which states The fool says in his heart,  “There is no God.”
• Faithless – People who are faithless in this sense are those that do not keep their promises, or people who do not do what they say they will do.[6]  Undependable, inconsistent, and treacherous are similar words.  We all know people who occasionally fail to keep their word, but a faithless person never keeps his word.  This person cannot be trusted, and is not trustworthy. 
• Heartless – This person has no feelings for anyone else, nor do they show any kindness towards any other fellow human being.  They cannot maintain any sort of meaningful relationship with another human being, except to use them to get what they want.  These individuals jeopardize any and all relationships they are in, including familial and community groups.  Their heart is hard, and they care of no one but themselves. 
• Ruthless – This word means without mercy.  This person never shows compassion or leniency to anyone.  Grace is not in this person’s vocabulary. 

What we have to remember about people who demonstrate all or some of these sins is that we are just like them, except for the grace of God.  All people are made in the image of God and all are still redeemable.  What God has called us to do is to bring the gospel message to all people, regardless of their history, attitudes, criminal record, or demeanor.  Because all people are made in the image of God and despite our total depravity, we all still retain that image of God.  Therefore, we should all strive to bring out that portion of God’s image-bearer in all people as we interact and live with them. 

            In conclusion, Paul offers what seems the worst condemnation yet.  Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.   Paul reinforces the idea that all people, no matter how depraved they are, still know (epignosis, or have the full knowledge of God) God’s laws, and know that what they are doing is wrong.  They know they are doing wrong, but instead of being ashamed and sorrowful, people relish the fact they are doing wrong, and actually encourage others to do the same thing.  We can all think of a number of instances today where people have turned right into wrong, and wrong into right.  Abortion, homosexuality, lying, adultery, drug use (legalized medical marijuana), pedophilia, and many other sins and vices have all be justified, excused, and even supported as alternate lifestyles, personal choices, and even treated as constitutional rights.  On the other hand, abstinence, monogamy, and sin in general have all been ridiculed and tossed out as remnants of an old order that was repressive and stifled human’s freedom of expression.  In many instances today, right is wrong, and wrong is right.

            There are a couple of major points to take away from this section of Romans 1 that we all must keep in mind as we continue on through the study.  One is the downward spiral that man takes as he desires to live life independent of God.  God will give us what we wish for, and it will not be pretty or pleasant.  Once we start down this path, we will find ourselves deeper and deeper in a pit that we will even refuse to recognize as a problem.  That is the sad part.  Pretty soon, our sin and dishonorable desires actually appear to us to be honorable.  We eventually go from being ashamed and aware that what we are doing is wrong, to confused and accepting of our wrongdoing as right.  This is a dangerous place to be.  Only the power of God working in us can then turn us around and set us again back on the right track, clearing our minds and setting our hearts straight once again. 

            Paul makes it clear in this section of Scripture that homosexuality is an abomination to God.  Homosexuality is without a doubt a result of human beings exchanging the natural for that which is against nature.  Today more than ever Christians are threatened with a radical homosexual agenda that is determined to make homosexuals a protected class of people, and any voiced opinion against their lifestyle will be seen as a criminal act.  This agenda will eventually run headlong into the Biblical doctrines that are clearly counter to the homosexual agenda.  We must keep in mind that homosexuality is a sin, and that it is contrary to nature in God’s sight.  However, homosexuals are not the enemy.  Sin and Satan are the enemy and every gay and lesbian person is still made in the image of God, and is still redeemable through the power of the gospel.  That said, Christians must be prepared to support and defend the Bible in a firm but respectful way against the onslaught that would shred it to pieces. 

Using the lens of Romans 1 to view our world today, we can get a greater appreciation of what is going on and why.  God’s wrath is clearly being revealed, and the results that Paul discusses can be clearly seen today.  Using Romans 1, we can make sense of what is happening.  School shootings, abortion, the intense bombardment of hetero and homosexual sex everywhere we look, the greed in many businesses and on Wall Street, the road rage and criminal activity, and the rejection of Christianity in favor of other more benign religions should not come as a surprise given Romans 1.  However, all of these things should make us more aware and sure of the fact that the world still desperately needs the gospel of Christ.  We should all hate the injustice and dishonor of God going on today, but at the same time we should all be inspired and motivated to devote more time and energy to the gospel of God and the Great Commission, not just overseas, but in our own backyards. 

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[1] Herrick, Greg. 1995. Romans: The Gospel of God’s Righteousness.  Biblical Studies Foundation, http://www.bible.org/. p. 30.  

[2] Sproul, The Gospel of God, p. 41. 

[3] Sproul, The Gospel of God, p. 42. 

[4] Zodhiates, S. 2000. The Complete Word Study Dictionary, NT.  Chatanooga, TN: AMG publishers. 

[5] Kittel, G. et al. 1976. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 

[6] Zodhiates, asunthetos.